Grand America
A just had a thought, not much related to Belarus - it's about America.
In the John Waters documentary, his long-time associate Pat Moran, when talking about censorship, says that America sets itself up as grand and free. (I don't remember the exact words, but I remember distinctly the word 'grand')
I think that a lot of Americans do idealize their country, seeing it as almost God's kingdom. The natural reaction to that is idealizing it in the opposite way: demonizing it, and seeing it as the source of all evil in the world.
It seems to me that such aggrandizement, whether positive or negatice, happens beacase many Americans, living in fairly isolated communities, and very much separated from the rest of the world, often lack the sense of perspective. Whether they praise or criticize their country, they are rarely able to compare it to others in a specific and meaningful way.
I believe the Web is slowly changing that. Just by translating the bloggers in Belarus I can tell that Americans do want to know what's going on. It's indeed encouraging.
In the John Waters documentary, his long-time associate Pat Moran, when talking about censorship, says that America sets itself up as grand and free. (I don't remember the exact words, but I remember distinctly the word 'grand')
I think that a lot of Americans do idealize their country, seeing it as almost God's kingdom. The natural reaction to that is idealizing it in the opposite way: demonizing it, and seeing it as the source of all evil in the world.
It seems to me that such aggrandizement, whether positive or negatice, happens beacase many Americans, living in fairly isolated communities, and very much separated from the rest of the world, often lack the sense of perspective. Whether they praise or criticize their country, they are rarely able to compare it to others in a specific and meaningful way.
I believe the Web is slowly changing that. Just by translating the bloggers in Belarus I can tell that Americans do want to know what's going on. It's indeed encouraging.
posted by Ivan Lenin at 19:29
4 Comments:
Yes, I think the point on perspective is interesting and important. It might also be a "big country" phenomenon. When I lived in Russia, I'd often meet similarly extreme views of Russia (and abroad) from Russians, often when there can have been little chance of them having had perspective for those views. "Просто знаю, что всё у нас лучше, чем у вас," for example. That sort of thing.
Anyway, why are you a Rush Mush and not a Belamush? (Hm, I suppose it doesn't sound quite as good.)
Thanks for the updates on Belarus.
Exactly. I live in America, where it is very hard to get quality information about anything foreign. Thanks to the internet and blogs, this is no longer a problem, and much of the country is slowly noticing as well.
Thanks for visiting and commenting, guys.
Bib,
People often ask me this question. I'm really a product of russification of Belarus. Both my mother's and my father's families came to Belarus from Russia during or shortly after the war (WWII). There were millions like them, because so many people in Berlarus were killed, somebody had to live there. I grew up in the Russian-speaking Minsk. As a kid, I had not heard a word in Belarusian except on TV, and nobody I knew spoke Belarusian. I thought it was an artificial language - and after the reforms of 1930s, it did sound artificial. I didn't start reading in Belarusian until after high school, when I started feeling that Belarus was a real country. Then I came to America, and people here call me Russian because that's what I speak - and I don't mind. I wouldn't be me without the Russian culture. Naturally, I speak Russian to all my friends from ex-USSR.
Now the people who came out to the square have proven that Belarus is indeed a real country. Because of those people, probably for the first time in my life, I feel proud to be from Belarus.
Молодец! Жыве Беларусь! Берлiн (well, one English blogger there) з вамi!
And keep up the good updates.
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